Transcription

St John's Parsonage | St John's Wood

Sep 25 /69

Dear Mr Darwin.

Many thanks for the pamphlet sent, & duly received—on
additions to fertility of Orchids; & which has interested me
much. I must apologize for not having returned a paper on
Phyllotaxis. I cannot understand part of it at all; viz: about
the ``rectangle'' & the letters to the fig I found are
wrong in some places. Though the rest of the paper is
interesting.

I beg to send you a copy of my Expression on same subject.

Hoping you are in good health | believe me | yrs very truly
| Geo Henslow

Henslow refers to C. de Candolle 1865. See C. de Candolle 1865, p. 208, for the `rectangle' and
p. 205 for the figure. CD's annotated copy, a separately paginated
offprint, is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection--CUL. For CD's own interest in phyllotaxy, see
Correspondence vol. 11.

+

f3 6909.f3

Henslow had presented a paper on phyllotaxy at the Linnean
Society in April 1868 (Henslow 1868). See also Correspondence
vol. 16, letter from George Henslow, 13 April 1868.